The Darkness of Future Past

I tend to spend the first few days of a new year thinking back on the last—a practice I that developed over time as a tool for being a better person—and the experience leads the mind down many paths towards some ultimate goal that I may not have codified yet. I spend a little bit of time examining my successes and accomplishments, yet go to great lengths to really look into my failures, mistakes and poor decisions—it is this practice of introspective reflection that is the cornerstone of my personal growth.

Sometimes I get down on myself in the process, yet it is mostly a positive experience with each failure or mistake being an opportunity for potential growth or self actualization. I just can't feel badly about learning a lesson, even when I was really, really in the wrong.

In the kitchen in 2009 there were many successes, even a few accomplishments, yet there were failures both epic and minuscule in abundance. This is inevitable when you are taking risks and trying new techniques and combinations of flavors. Each food fail has pushed me forward to this point, an event horizon from which there is no turning back, and 2010 will usher in a new era of my culinary awakening. Consciousness and deliberate action must be the foundation for what will be achieved this year. Are we ready?

What to Do?

I didn't make a pie this year for Thanksgiving. For some reason it's the only time of year I ever get the itch to make one. Well, I guess I should have made one or used protection, 'cause this itch isn't going away and I need to take care of it before it festers.

On the way to work this morning I contemplated pie making and it's place in my near future. I have some ideas for pies that I want to do. Possibly gluten-free pie crusts (but she doesn't like pie?)? Just like the post in the link above, my mind has turned to savory pies. Meat pies. Yummy meat pies filled with goodies (offal). Maybe that deer heart my Pops brought me will go to use in a pie.

Right now I'm just thinking about it (a lot). I usually do an apple pie. "Fancy" apple pie, some might say, but really it is just simple, traditionally produced scratch pie. With my finger more or less on the pulse of glorious seasonal fruit, I find myself thinking about foregoing apples all together. Maybe persimmons would be better, more appropriate? Or kiwi? Or. . .

Nature of the Beast

Gourmets and gourmands share several defining characteristics, what sets them apart is that the gourmand's love of food is so intense that it often causes them to eat to excess. Today is our day, get to it.

No NaNo

It's November and that means that NaNoWriMo is in full swing. I can imagine the entire legion of the makeshift novelists click-clacking away on their laptops, looking broody, brows furrowed, hands unsteady from drinking way too much caffeine, while watching their word-count plummet as their blood-pressure skyrockets. That's how it works though. You type a lot of crap and you write a novel in a month. Or at least 50,000 words of a novel.

I am not participating in NaNoWriMo this year, but plan on being back in action by next year. Last year's trip to London pretty much killed my chances last time around, but I still know the taste of victory from crossing that fifty "K" mark back in ought seven and it is kind of like when you find a morsel of bacon in your teeth later in the day—nostalgic and delicious. This is a very challenging competition to impose upon yourself, yet I suggest everyone try it at some point just for the hell of it. You occasionally will write something that will impress you later, but for the most part it feels like you are writing crap and desperately trying to carry a narrative. Good fun!

I recently landed a cookbook reviewer gig for ChefTalk.com. Should be neat. You can read my first review here.

The Things You Overhear in a Grocery Store

SON

Can we get some of these bananas?

FATHER

No. . .they're Dole.

SON

But I want bananas.

FATHER

NO. They're Dole bananas.

SON

But we always get those bananas.

FATHER

No we don't.

SON

Why can't we get them?

FATHER

Cause they keep South America down.

From One Belly to Another

It's interesting how food trends seem to permeate all media at once in what seems to be a bizarre widespread synchronistic event. I've been waiting for a few weeks to cook this piece of pork belly and while I waited, everyone else was digging in. The Statesman ran a piece on pork belly and this week's Top Chef featured Pigs and Pinot, with two cheftestants doing belly.

Interesting. Of course, pork belly is nothing new, but it has been getting a lot of play over the past year or so. If you've ever enjoyed it then you understand why. This is one of things that lets you use the word unctuous in a positive way. Yum.

Slabbage.

Last week I ventured down to the North Buda Bungalow to feast with Shaddley & Co. I already had this nice piece of Niman Ranch pork belly so we were going to go about the evening in the usual fashion of multi-course Dionysian decadence. After a brief stop at a centrally-located market, it was off to the newly revamped kitchen of Shaddley and YogaMarketingBrownieGirl.

I was really excited about the pork belly and even the late start time couldn't deter me from braising it in the loving way it deserved. Yes, we had a late start, around eight or so, which made for an extended evening of dining and drinking.

There was much prep to do for all the other dishes, so I got the belly in the oven as quickly as possible, reserving a small amount for use in other dishes. The belly was the fourth course of this small plates feast. I had time to drink some wine and go about my business preparing the rest of the meal as the pork belly sat in the oven discovering itself.

There was a gap of time between the third course of lamb and tiny dutch potatoes, and the belly. A gap that was long enough, apparently, for one of the guests to suggest that they watch The Dark Knight. I think this time out of the eating and drinking pocket was the demise of two of our feast mates. Shaddley came back from the realms of dreamy floor land just in time to eat this dish. Of course, being that some of the inspiration for this plate was a play on bacon and eggs, it's almost appropriate to eat it after waking up. Then again it was one thirty a.m. and not noon.

Pork belly, I love you.

The braised belly was lightly fried, then coated in a sweet and sour Shochu glaze and served with rutabaga puree, egg white, an egg and apple emulsion and parsley puree. The pork was fun to eat, sticky and sweet with grounding, earthy flavors of pork, star anise and cinnamon. Like the best bacon you could eat. There was something reminiscent of sweet and sour pork as well, which is often made from this cut. The sticky Shochu glaze paired well with the pork belly's unctuous nature.

Bacon candy.

Unfortunately, only YogaMarketingBrownieGirl and I were able to feast on the desert of bacon toffee and panna cotta. I crisped some of the reserved belly for use in the toffee, which came out nicely, redeeming my last overdone batch. Shaddley was forced to enjoy the dessert after coffee the following morning.

Bold Moves

I've never even heard of Eater. Maybe that says something about me or how little I care for the foodienistas out there in the abyss, but I do find it to be a bold move to put a call out for bloggers to hang up their keyboards "in order to make way for stronger reporting of the food world."

Sure, not all blogs are created equal—I actually don't read more than a handful and haven't had the time to keep mine up and running over the past few months—but there is something disconcerting about a food related website asking bloggers to shut it down for a nominal fee. Poking around on this Eater website, I found the usual poorly written foodie crap that I personally don't care about or write about (who cares about Rocco DiSpirito's newest pitch on his long road to selling out?). So, this leaves me poised to ask why—why ask us to stop writing about our passion? Sounds wack.

I'll ramble about whatever mundane shit I want to motherfucker.

Food bloggers out there, don't do it. Resist the temptation of making a quick $25 bucks and don't stop writing about food. Food bloggers in Austin seem more apt to cover locally produced foods, locally owned restaurants and the scene than some shitty national website that thinks it has its finger on the pulse. This move is nothing new. Eater seems to have a lot of advertising dollars coming in from the Food Network and the like, folks who have turned eating into a sport and homogenized food trends and styles into neat little marketable packages with frosted blonde tips, like Guy Fieri. The idea that they will be releasing an 'Eater's Bill of Rights' today, and that it should be in any way taken serious, is a joke.

Keep writing and cooking and eating and loving food the way you want to, not the way the Big Foodie in the Sky tells you is cool. Fuck that shit.